possibly moving to Edinburgh, looking for advice

[seattleite1]

Hello,

I apologize that this is mainly another school and neighborhood question. I've read back thru many of the posts and found them really helpful but still want to confirm that I'm understanding it all!

My DH is looking at a job in Edinburgh that would see us move there at the end of June. His job would be in, what I think, is the city center (it's "the old Scotsman in Holyrood" is all I know right now). He's going to be travelling there on the 30th so I will know more after he actually gets to visit the city!

We have 3 boys who will be ages 13, 11 & 11 when we move. If I've understood the schools correctly they will be going into S2 & P7. (we are American and here they would be going into 8th and 6th grade). We want to live in the city so that we can either have no car or 1 car.

My main concern is, it seems that even if we rent in the catchment area that we will not automatically get a place in the area school. Especially since we won't be there until very late and after all assignments are completed.

There seem to be many good choices and the main areas we are looking at are: Craigmount, James Gillespie, Boroughmuir. I realize these are some of the top schools and just wondering if we have a prayer of getting a spot at such a late date? It seems like Currie, Balerno and Firrhill are also good but these are farther from DH work. He's desperate for an easy and short commute after many years of spending 2 hours a day in the car!

I'm not as concerned for my younger 2 (twins) because they only have 1 year of primary left and I figure we can deal with anything for a year (although, if they got assigned to separate schools that might be really hard!) And, it seems that if older DS got a spot in our area catchment (or, at least an out of catchment school that we like) that the sibling rule would help get spots for the younger 2 when they enter S1?

Edinburgh looks like such a beautiful city and we would love the opportunity to live there but I'm freaking out a little at the possibility that my kids will end up at 3 different schools in completely different neighborhoods from where we live.

Thanks for any advice!
Holly

I'm not sure how much choice you will have if you are looking locally. High school wise, Dalry area is catchment for Tynecastle which I don't think you'd struggle to get a space in. Your next nearest school is Boroughmuir, which is excellent but very full so you may well not get a space for the 13 year old and almost certainly won't get one for the other children in the following years as they'd need to do an out of catchment request unless you moved. Others would require a bus journey, maybe Craigmount (walk through to Roseburn for a bus probably) could work, or further afield Currie and Balerno, whilst a decent distance, are both an easy journey on the 44 bus. Firhill would be fairly easy too I think.

Primary wise, you've got Dalry primary, Roseburn (oversubscribed!), then you're up to likes of Bruntsfield, or Craiglockhart, or Balgreen. Tollcross isn't too far and I think you might get spaces as I believe it's a bit quieter since the Gaelic unit moved out.

Something to consider with your younger children is that if they go to an out of catchment primary which isn't linked with your catchment high school (probably Tynecastle) then they could end up separated from all of their friends come high school. IIRC, Balgreen, Dalry and Craiglockhart all feed to Tynecastle so if they went to any of those then if you weren't successful in getting an out of catchment request at high school then at least they'd still have friends. If you went for, say, Tollcross then the linked catchment school is James Gillespie's which is very heavily subscribed so you probably wouldn't get them in there.

Basically every address has a non denominational primary and secondary, and a catholic primary and secondary. The catchments of each high school will align against several primaries but going to one of those primaries doesn't get you a place at the high school - only living in catchment guarantees that.